Thursday, March 31, 2005

Love Among the Embers

    At Dinner in the old folks home, heard on the public address system:

RECREATION DIRECTOR: May I have your attention, please.  Milton wants to ask a question.
MILTON:  Eva, will you marry me?
RECREATION DIRECTOR: Eva said,  "Yes."
RESIDENTS: (Cheering but with a few cat-calls.)

   Eva and Milton, both in their eighties, who have both celebrated their golden wedding anniverseries with other spouses, will be married here at the home, and probably have their grandchildren as attendants. 
   They are moving today to adjoining rooms with a connecting door.  The date of the door unlocking has not yet been announced.

Monday, March 28, 2005

Merced, CA, Weather Report

                                        Rain

                                       (sigh)

What? No Hot-Cross Buns?

I flippantly call the residence where I live "The Old Folks Home" but its proper name is Park Merced Assisted Living Facility. 

On Easter, in order help the Park live up to its high falutin' name, Steve, the chef came up with the following superb menu.

BREAKFAST
Choice of hot or cold cereal
Choice of juice: apple, orange, tomato, prune
Choice of entree: cinnamon roll and bacon or Eggs Benedict garnished with fresh strawberry
Choice of beverage: coffee, tea, or milk

DINNER
Hors'doeuvres: deviled eggs (made to resemble happy faces with stuffed olive eyes)
Choice of salad: cottage cheese and pineapple, tossed green with choice of dressing, applesauce
Choice of entree: Baked Ham, sweet potatoes or mashed potatoes, or Cornish Game Hens with wild rice
Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce.
Dessert: pudding

SUPPER
Grilled cheese sandwiches
Tomato soup
Dessert: Cookie


Sounds like the menu of Holland-American Liner.  In fact, once one of the elderly residents looked around the dining hall and asked "How many passengers do we have here?"  He thought we were on a luxury cruise. 
No wonder.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

HAPPY EASTER

Whether your name is on the egg or not

Friday, March 25, 2005

How to Tell a Joke in an Old Folks Home

Answer:  Don't

The Joke:

Customer in coffee shop
:  I'll have coffee without cream..
Waitress
:  Sorry, Sir.  We're all out of cream.  You'll have to have it without milk.

The Response: (Laughter?  Well, no)  Silence.

Evaluation:  Maybe they've heard it before.  Or, maybe next time I remember an old joke, I'll bite my tongue before I tell it.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Photo Scavenger Hunt

   "Go out and take a new picture of anything you want, and we'll compare and see what subjects we come up with," Krissy suggested.

   Here's mine: clouds, on my shopping trip this morning. I brought back replacement scissors, replacement measuring cup, and clouds.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Book Review

   "I don't like this book," I said as I threw it down.  I surprised myself.  Everyone loves this book.  It is the commonly accepted celebration of old age.  It is filled with "heart warming tales" and poems about old folks, and is loved by everyone I talked to about it. 
   Except me.
   Never mind which book it is.  I know you
love it, because everyone loves it.  I don't want to open myself to your scorn for my bad taste. 
   I don't want to celebrate my old age any more than I would celebrate the loose tooth in my mouth that wobbles and wiggles but won't fall out, and is too much trouble to go to the dentist and have pulled. It is an accouterment of old age, and not worth cheering. It is an evil that come of being "super-annuated".  I'm proud to be eighty, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.  It is better than the alternative, they say.  I'm not going to write a poem about it, nor am I going to read any more of them.
   I am an old person who likes to love, but spare me any stories of octogenarians in bed.  That's when I threw the book down.  I bought it, but I don't have to read it, thank you.

Control - D


   Bless you, John Scalzi, for telling us about control - D, the text editor, available from AOL.  I had no idea it was here.  It has a spell check, too.  How I have needed that feature.  I have been going from my document to an on-line dictionary and back several times with each entry I write. 

Rain -- 4

   After the drenching "fifteen year" soaking rain we got yesterday, see below, when I went to bed last night, I looked out the window.  The automatic sprinklers had come on and were watering the lawn.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Rain -- 3

   Today's "gentle rain" that I waxed poetic about this morning, (See Below) left our driveway looking like a river and causing drivers to navigate their way to the street.

 

PS:  I just found out, that this car got stalled about fifteen feet in front of where it is now.  Figures.

Rain -- 2

   Did I just write about our gentle rain? (Below)

   HAH!

   It came down for about and hour in sheets. It was the hardest rain I've seen in years.

   The hardest rain I ever saw was while visiting colonial Williamsburg.  I was hatless, a Californian you know, and without rain gear, same reason, and it suddenly cut loose with a cloudbusst you Easterners know, but I had never experienced.  My lady and I ran for the old armory.  The historical significance was lost upon us.  So the Revolutionary War started right here, in this brick building, which kept the militia powder dry, but was too late for us. That was an historic rain for me.  I was as wet as if I had been swimming in my clothes. That rain ended my history tour for the day.  If it had rained that hard in 1775 it might have washed away the insurrection. It could have changed history.

   We would be speaking English today instead of American.

Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain

    Third day of rain, and three more forecast.  It is 5:30 am, and the gurgling of rain in the downspout gently wakes me.  The rain is light, and I wouldn't even notice it except for the patter in the downspout. 

    It would be easy to engineer a spout that would be silent, but would we want to.  The rain dribbles down the center of the pipe and free falls to spatter on the base, each drop drumming on the flat metal saying, "Here I am.  Hear me.  It's raining.  Again."  We could say "Shhh", by tilting the spout so that the rain would slide down silently.

   But then the storm might pass silently past and we could sleep right through it.  We might miss the whole thing.  I do miss the crashing, thrashing, flashing rain of Missouri.  In Missouri it really knows how to rain, and you don't sleep through one of those downpours. No, Sir.

   "Hush, Children, don't cry.  Just stay here in the storm cellar with Mommy and Daddy, and soon the rain will pass."

   At least each afternoon it has cleared long enough for some outdoor activity. 

   Sunday, daughter, son-in-law, grandson, and I went to Turlock, CA, to have lunch and then watch while daughter accepted an award for painting at an art show. 

   Monday, I took my scooter, and escorted Emma, a resident of the old folks home, on her new scooter, around the parking lot.  We did figure eights, and backed in circles, and parked, and made three point turns in a practice session.  She is very uncertain and hesitant in her driving.  At one point, I parked and waited while she circled the entire lot solo.  I know now how my flying instructor felt when he sent me off around the pattern on my first solo.  But she made it back, though delayed by automobile traffic.  Whew.

   So, rain on, gurgle and splatter.  By the end of summer we will be complaining about cloudless skies and asking, "When's this drought going to end?  We sure could use some rain.". 

Saturday, March 19, 2005

The World's LEAST Efficient Mode of Transportation

In the world of efficiency, let's hear a mumur of recognition for the least efficient.

While driving of the freeway past Carson, Califonrina, I saw the Goodyear Blimp on the downwind leg of the landing pattern.  "Oh," said I to the family, "Let's go see the Blimp land."  We took an off ramp, drove the surface streets to the Goodyear landing field, parked the car and walked to the fence.  By now the Blimp was turning base leg.

We had time to observe the crews' duty room.  There were six or eight husky crewmen inside playing cards, drinking coffee and relaxing.  The Blimp meanwhile turned onto the final leg toward the airfield.

As the Blimp passed over the airfield fence on final approach a laconic voice came over the loudspeaker:  "Air--ship".  The crew finished the card game, washed their coffee cups, and sauntered out to the center of the field in time to meet the Blimp, The Spirit of America, as it touched down.

Two husky crewmen grabbed ropes that dangled from the nose of the Blimp and others grabbed handrails on the side of the gondola.  The engines slowed to idle and the "Eagle" had landed.  Two or three passengers who were waiting mounted the gondola steps, and others dismounted, and some sand bags were passed from ground to airship.

Then the crewmen carried the gondola forward, and then on a signal from the pilots, grunted, "ah-one, ah-two, ah-THREE", and heaved the Blimp, gondola, and passengers into the air in a cordinated six-man shot put.  The engines roared and the Goodyear Blimp sped off at a breathtaking ten miles per hour.   

The Blimp is surely the least efficient form of transportation in use, but it probably the most charming.  It does something no other form of air transport does:  It goes slow.  It leisurely cruises over neigborhood, woods, and football stadium, a mere 1500 feet high at a pace at which air passengers can see what is going on upon the ground.  In fact, when the engines are throttled back, they can hear what is going on below, like dogs barking at the huge shadow that just darkened them at mid-day, children at play, or fans, such as I, cheering "Go, Goodyear Blimp." 

 

MyCoffee Mugs

<<My coffee mugs>>

------------------------------

 CIRCUMFLEX

Circumflex.host.sk

-----------------

Springs of Life!

 Blue Springs Church

  Of the Nazarine

________________

      SNYDER'S

             of Hanover

(Picture of  pretzel in a heart)

-------------------------

    REGENT

Assisted Living, Inc

Merced, CA 95348

===============

OXNARD

    RECYCLES

----------------------

(Picture of a Corgi)

_________________

BUSCH

  Bavarian Beer

------------------------------

Thought I had more.  I wonder where they are.  My collection seems to have vanished.

Wekend assignment #51 -- Spring Haiku

Hail the umblicus --

Nubile young women flaunt it

So do fat old men

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Biannual Belly Button Day

Biannual Belly-Button Day Coming Up March 21

Twice yearly we celebrate that humblest, yet most meaningful part of the body, the umbilicus. Usually hidden discretely, the belly-button is the most important part of our body. Through the umbilicus we were fed by our mothers until we could sustain life and were born. No connection is more intimate. None of us get into life without one.

So on this day, March 21, we celebrate life, motherhood, birth, by showing our belly buttons. Whether the umbilical scar is an “innie” or and “outie”, whether decorated with rings and jewels, or naked, natural, and beautiful, let us show our belly buttons. It is no coincidence that belly button day coincides with the vernal equinox. The button symbolizes birth, and the first day of spring does too. Bees emerge from their hives to pollinate the newly sprouted flowers and create new life. Swallows return to Capistrano to build nests and start new families.

Belly dancers know it: the button is the fountain of life, the blessing of humanity, the inspiration of procreation. They proudly display it. In fact they flaunt it. Nubile young women don thongs and bikinis to show their buttons on beaches from Maine to California, and fat old men do too.

So let’s see your umbilicus on March 21. The next Belly Button Day is not until September 21. Enjoy it now.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Entanglement Preserved

Remember the workstation photo and the tangle of wires.  I had several comments about that impossible mess, for some of you had one like it.  So I embossed it, like casting baby shoes in bronze, so it would forever last, to remind me that once I knew where every jumper went, and why. 

   

Workstation and tangled wires          Tangle forever embossed in aluminum

Stressed -- More or Less

   It seems to me, from reading your journals, that we have a problem in common. We all get over-stressed from time to time without realizing it. We feel shaky, or weepy, and don't know why.

   Last evening while taking my bed-time pills, I dropped the cap of the bottle, and I WEPT.  Rather, I started to weep.  I caught myself in the middle of the first sob, and straightened myself out.  "You idiot, you merely dropped a bottle cap on the floor.  Pick it up and get on with what you were doing."

   Then I realized: It's the stress acting.  I've been to the doctor four times in three weeks, to the emergency room twice, in the hospital four days, and on a new regimen of pills.  The real wonder is that I haven't wept before.

   Unerstanding this has helped me.

   Hey, it's a nice day and life is worth living.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Photo assignment -- workstation

This not a rerun.  John Scalzi in By the Way has suggested we show our work station.  It was already on file for Photo Scavenger Hunt several months ago.

I was astounded at that time by the unholy tangle of wires below my desk.  It hasn't changed.  Fie, for shame.

Patrick's Saturday Six

Here's my response to Patrick.

1. Have you ever called 911 for an emergency?

Yes a couple of times, the police. but didn’t receive any help. So would hesitate to do so now.

2. Do you spend more or save more
? I save more.

3. How many live plants do you have in your home now? Do you give them enough attention?
None. My Christmas poinsettia died. Last time I got one, I gave it away quick, to spare its life.

4. What was the last thing you did to exercise? How often do you exercise?
Went to Moving with Music day before Yesterday. Sat in a chair and waved my arms about a bit to the music. Also I sang…hooray.

5. Where do you compare with regard to your parents: do you feel like an adult, or still like the "kid?" If you feel like an adult, when did you first feel that way
? Felt like an “adult” when I had kids. Now my daughter takes care of me and I am "child" again.

6. Who is the last person you received a personal card or letter from that wasn't sent to mark a special occasion?
I carry on regular correspondence with my cousin. I number my letters in sequence and am up to 389 now.

They Move, They Talk, They Flicker

 

   Thomas Edison figured out how to make slides projected on a screen move. Imagine that. The wonder. By showing twelve different slides per second, the image seemed to move. The image flickered a lot, but moved. Viewers called them the flickers. The flickering moving slides were called movies. . Establishments opened that showed movies. It cost a nickel to get in. They were called nickelodeons.

   Then movies went legitimate and were shown in theaters. Like the a Broadway theater, you went to an evening’s entertainment, and there was no popcorn nor refreshment served. In fact, you were prohibited from eating in the theater.

   I started going to movies about this time. I remember seeing only one silent film. I don’t remember the movie and I can recall only the last scene: the hero dying.

   The hero dying? What kind of a movie is that? Heroes are supposed to survive so they can appear next week in a new film.

   Sound-on-film was invented and movies became talkies. I can’t remember the first talkie I saw, but it was probably Wings with Jean Harlow, Richard Arlen and Buddy Rogers.

   Talkies were still an “evening out”, dress up affairs in theaters. There were a newsreel, a travelogue, an animated cartoon, and the feature attraction. Since it was evening, kids did not get taken.

   For kids, the Saturday Matinee was started. Movies, talkies I mean, have not been the same since. Kids are kids. They brought pop corn and candy and sneaked it in. The screamed, they shouted, they made cat calls at the kissing scenes. Adventure thrillers took the place of romances, and were shown as serials, one chapter each week. Each chapter ended with the hero or heroine in peril, such as hanging off a cliff, and you had to come back the following week to see how he or she could possibly escape.

    The theater owners gave up any semblance to legitimate theater. “If kids are gonna eat pop corn and candy, we might as well make money by selling it to them.” I remember my shock the first time I saw a refreshment stand in a theater….right there in the lobby. My parents were shocked too. Now they had to add a dime for pop corn to the quarter they gave me for admission.

   Then, in a price war, the double-feature was invented. To the newsreel, travelogue, cartoon, feature, was added a second feature. The second film was usually a low budget film. They were called B-movies, as opposed the main feature, the A-movie. Double bills drew more patrons than single features.

   Then shows began to show continuously. You could go to a show at any time. You often walked in in the middle of a feature. You watched it until it finished, viewed the short subjects, saw a second feature, and then, starting over, the first part of the movie you walked in on. When you came to the part you had already seen you were free to go. The term “This is where we came in” became common parlance. If you remembered the end of the movie you had seen, you added it mentally to the first part you were viewing, and through mental gymnastics made a compete story. If the intervening second feature made compiling the story in your head difficult, you could sit through the ending again.

   Finally after three or four hours, head reeling, you would stagger to your car and drive home muttering, “Now what was the second film we saw?”

   Unless you have been living in Nyrobe or Uganda, you know what happened next. The corner theater became the Multiplex with a whole bunch of theaters in the same building, with a refreshment stand with pop corn, ice cream, hot dogs, and hot meals, video games, and coin operated rides.

   The movie house has become an amusement park, a home away from home.

   That’s the history of the flickers, as related by one bleary-eyed movie buff who has lived through most of it.

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Looking Up -- II

   In my entry below called Looking Up, I showed a photo of the branches of a Texas Umbrella Tree.  The twisted gnarled limbs drew nice comments from visitors.  Maybe I owe it to that tree to show it all, including the trunk down to the ground.

   Here it is:

Friday, March 11, 2005

More celebrities I have Known

 

When we were talking about celebrities a few months ago, it never occurred to me that I knew one well. I had even ridden him.

He was a chestnut gelding named Broadway. He was gentle, loving, and lived out his retirement in my mother’s back yard.

He was called Broadway because he had been ridden from coast to coast, from Broadway, Los Angeles, to Broadway, New York, in his younger days. In that feat, he stopped for publicity pictures on the steps of each state capitol of the states he passed through. He knew how to rear, lifting his front feet high in a equine salute, and his rider would wave from his perilous perch. That stance was photographed for newspapers across the nation.

Fame is fleeting, and soon Broadway was a riding stable horse being hired out by the hour. My mother fell in love with him and bought him for her own.

Broadway was brought home to a spacious back yard. My dad built him a nice corral and stable. He bought him a companion horse too.

Mom and Dad’s social life revolved around horses. They and friends took weekly rides that culminated with lunch at one person’s home or another. They even produced a “horse opera” which I filmed with my Keystone hand-held 8mm camera. I even appeared as an extra on horse back, probably Broadway, delivering an urgent message to the villain, Black Bart, played by my dad who was actually named Bart.

Mother cared for Broadway, grooming and saddling him and riding him regularly. From time to time she would show folks how he could rear, though his famous high pawing of the air was pretty much subdued as he aged.

Finally, one day, aged about thirty, Broadway collapsed while mother was riding. She stepped off and stayed with him while he died.

When the animal control retrieval driver came to remove the body, mother was horrified to see him kick Broadway’s body to see if he were dead.

Proud Broadway had reared his last.

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Photo scavenger hunt -- Looking Up

   Only one photo in my whole file fits the category "Looking Up".  A gnarled, twisted old giant stands at the entry to the old folks home.  I believe it is a Texas Umbrella tree which means when the March winds blow it will deposit great limbs on the sidewalk.  It has just been trimmed, so maybe it will withstand the big blows better this year. 

   I was struck by the pattern made by the limbs, so I looked up long enough to take its portrait. 

Wednesday, March 9, 2005

Monday Question on Wednesday

Monday Morning Question:

What is your favorite restaurant?  What is your favorite meal there?

Applebee's for Ribs.

And I like Sizzler for their salad and entree bar, Hometown Buffet for their buffet choices...even though I have to roll around the table in a wheel chair... and Paul's Place in Merced, but you won't know about that one because it is not a chain.

Saturday, March 5, 2005

Saturday Six from Patrick's Place

Questions from Patrick's Place

1. What is your favorite color for an automobile?  Is your car this color?  Have had white and tan and blue and liked them all, but present van is metalic sand

2. You decide to start a diet on Monday.  What is the "bad food" meal that you must have "one last time" over the weekend? Oooh, spare ribs, whole rack, with barbecue sauce

3. How do you balance your checkbook?  In your head, with a calculator, or with software? Last time I used software, the program that comes with Windows XP, but do it very rarely.

4. How many of the Oscar
®
winner movies did you see before the awards this year? Dpn't believe I saw any of them unless National Treasure or Meet the Fockers was there.  Oh, wait, saw The Aviator.  Was worthy of an award for actor, actress, best movie in my opinion.  Did they get any oscars or even nominations?
 
5. In what room of the house do you find yourself the most comfortable and why? Have a two room apartment.  Most comfortable in living room with a/c and heat.  Retire to bedroom at night to sleep only.

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #49 from
Scott:  What is the "one thing" that the mere mention of sends shivers down your spine? A trip to the Emergency Room.  Spent 21 hour there last weekend and 8 hours there last night.  They need to revise the system of hospital admissions.  You can only get into hospital through the emergency room, whereas a doctor ought to be able to admit you directly when he knows you need it.

April 1944

The entry below is pretty grim.  All was not that grim during those days.

    When we got to England, everything was rationed.  There was not much to buy.  When we got a pass to go to town, Wells, we went about looking for something, anything, to buy.  We came upon a bakery and were able to buy a small loaf of freshly baked bread. 

   "What does it cost," we asked. 

   "Thruppence ha'penny," was the reply. We looked at one another in awe.  What is that?  We went through the English coins in our pockets.  We found one octagonal coin about the size of a nickel, that was the "thruppence", and a copper coin about the size of thin quarter, that was the half-penny, "ha'penny". 

   We bought the bread.  We had been living on U.S. rations, and the fresh bread was wonderful, plain warm bread with nothing on it.

   We were very proud of ourselves, my buddies and I, for having made our first sucessful transaction in foreign money.

March 5, 1945

   Sixty years ago, a young man, 20, me, was leading a patrol in Germany.  I came to an uncovered mine field in the street in a town on the Rhine river whose name I do not remember.  I stopped at the edge of the mine field.

   The lieutenant in charge of the platoon came forward.  He said, "Follow me and step where I step."  Lieutenants were not supposed to lead through mine fields, but he did.  And the Sergeant came next and said, "Step where I steop."  He he went next. 

   I was third.  I followed carefully, but a civilian woman in a window beside the road began desperately gesturing and pointing.  I looked up, thinking she's pointing us out to the enemy.  Later I realized she was pointing out the mines to warn us.  But for a second I was distracted.

   I looked back at the ground, just in time to see my foot stepping down on an exposed mine.  Then I was surrounded by the loudest noise I have ever heard.  I felt myself lifted as high as my head and then felt myself fall back on the ground on my butt.  That is the first thing that hurt.

   "Close your eyes," someone shouted and I did, and they were filled with sand and gunpowder.  I never saw my mangled foot. 

     My buddies carried me into an open door and reassured me that everything was going to be all right, and that my foot was just "broke real bad."  They gave me a shot of morphine from the first aid kit we all carried on our rifle belts.  They said, "You're going home, Ferris.  You're gonna get to go home."  They put me on a litter in a jeep which had been converted to an ambulance.  My foot was throbbing with pain, but because of the morphine, I didn't care.  And off I went to the aid station.

   That was sixty years ago today.

   Last night I was back in an Emergency Room for eight hours because of an infected foot. (The other one)  I lay on a gurney surround by injured and ill folks.  It was wait, wait, wait, all over again.  Some things change a lot in sixty years, and some things don't change at all.

  

Friday, March 4, 2005

Weekend assignment #49 Product Placement

    John Scalzi in By the Way invites us to be unashamedly commercial and plug those products we favor in our personal lives. 

   I usually buy the store brand of whatever product I'm needing.  Corn flakes are corn flakes whether they are Post Toasties or Kellog's.  Wheaties are wheat chips by any other name.  Blue Mint mouthwash is as suitable as Scope.  Ralph's market used to issue a line of products in plain wrappers with simple labels such as BREAD or CORN FLAKES or CAKE MIX.  Made shopping easy.

   So what brands do I use?  Well, Diet Pepsi for one.  Hewlett-Packard computer for another.  MCI telephone service, but I find it a bit noisy, but it's cheap. 

   I have driven many kinds of cars, but I  sort of favor Chevrolet.  It was the first I owned, and I've had a lot of 'em since, but my Fords, my Buick,  my Olds, my Morris Minor were all satisfactory.

   As for charity, I contribute to the United Way in my commity, and I let them choose the suitable recipient.

   So what can I plug?  Why AOL of course.  It keeps me in touch with the rest of the world at reasonable cost and with increasingly sophisticated programs.  I love to IM and Email with pictures and write in my journal and read the journals of others, all without extra cost.  I can get on the internet with a click of a mouse and research anything from the name of Hopalong Cassidy's horse to the words from Satchmo's "Darn old dummy" with ease.  I can buy books from Amazon or harmonicas from ebay and they appear at my door as if by magic.  So, America On Line, here's my free endorsement.

 

 

 

Cookie Cutter Cars

Come on, now, give the kids a break. Years ago a kid could stand on the corner watching cars go by and could tell you the make of each. “There’s Packard. That’s a DeSoto. Look, an Essex.”

Now, the cars look so much alike that it would take an expert to tell them apart. Look at the photo I took in our parking lot.

Here’s a Dodge Intrepid next to a Toyota Solara. Except for the tail lights they could have come from the same mold. Farther down the line was a Honda, and something else. I’m sure I can’t tell what the other is. It looks like all the others.

     

The engineers now must have a giant cookie cutter that shapes them all. They come out of the oven looking alike until the tail lights are pasted on.

Hey, guys, give us a fighting chance to tell your products apart.

Trivia -- Name that Horse

Person or character             Horse

Roy Rogers                                   ?

Dale Evans                                    ?

Hopalong Cassidy                         ?

Gene Autry                                   ?                              

Lone Ranger                                 ?

Tonto                                            ?

Wilbur  Post                                 ?

Peter (Donald O’Conner)             ?

Duchess (“Pet”)                           ?

Tom Mix                                      ?

Barney Google                             ?

Extra credit:

Bill Clinton’s cat                           ?

Pig on Green Acres                     ?

Answers:

Person or character                   Horse

Roy Rogers                                Trigger

Dale Evans                             Buttercup

Hopalong Cassidy                       Topper

Gene Autry                             Champion

Lone Ranger                                Silver

Tonto                                           Scout

Wilbur Post                                Mr. Ed

Peter (Donald O’Conner)           Francis

Duchess (Pet)                   Black Beauty

Tom Mix                                        Tony

Barney Google                      Sparkplug

Extra credit:

Bill Clinton’s cat                           Socks

Pig on Green Acres                    Arnold

Thursday, March 3, 2005

Ten Things I've done that you Probably Haven't

From http://journals.aol.com/astaryth/AdventuresofanEclecticMind Ten things I've done that you proably haven't.

1. Ridden in the Goodyear Blimp.  On my eighth birthday in 1932 I was given a blimp ride.  Yes, they had them back then.

2. Stepped on a land mine, not that you would want to. It was a very loud thing to do.

3.  Danced on a peg leg at a school assembly. 

4.  Had a glass eye fall  out in the movie theater and had to ask the usher to bring a flashlight to help find it.

5.  Soloed my own airplane.

6.  Landed off-field in the desert and then flown through a fence on take off. 

7.  Replaced the propeller on an airplane.

8.  Had lunch with John Travolta.

9,  Swam in both the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean

10.  Visited the Queen Mary and the Spruce Goose on the same day.

 

quiz game experimental formal

To see answers, drag cursor over the question.

HOW MANY

Teeth in a full adult set? 24, 28, 32, 36. 32

Red stripes on the American flag? 5, 7, 13, 50 7

Stars in the American flag? 13, 48, 50, 52 50

Inches in a yard? 12, 36, 100, 144 36

Pints in a gallon? 2, 8, 16, 32 8

Feet in a mile? 1,760 5,280 10,000 1,000,000 5,280

Miles per hour is Mach 1? 100, 670, 1000 186,000 670

Furlongs in a mile? 2, 6, 8, 12 8

Yards in a furlong? 6, 100, 220, 1500 220

Miles around the equator is the earth? 1,000 25,000 100,000 1,000,000? 25,000

Years in a score? 10. 20. 100. 1000 20

Years in a century? 10. 20, 100, 1000 100

Years in a millennium? 10, 20, 100, 1000 1000

Sheets of paper in a ream? 10, 20, 200, 500 500

Stencils in a quire? 10, 24, 48, 360 24 \

Buns in a Baker’s dozen? 12, 13, 15, 50 13

3c stamps in a dozen? 3,4, 12, 36 12

Pennies in a roll? 25, 40, 50, 100 50

Miles does light travel in a second? 560, 186,000, 1,000,000, more than a million 186,000

Miles away is the moon? Less than a million, one million, more than a million, 1 light year Less than a million

Miles away is the sun? less than a million, one million, more than a million, 1 light year more than a million

Keys on a piano? 65, 88, 126, none of the above 88

Many notes in an octave? 3, 8, 12, 88 8

Row of kernels on an ear of corn, most nearly? 7, 13, 25, 57 13

Seconds in five minutes? 60, 300, 1244, 7640 300

Years old was Methusela Four score and 7, three score and ten, 100, 969 969

Toes has a horse? None, 1, 4, 40 4 one on each

Experiment

Let's see if I can come up with a new format for quiz games.

 

Q:  How can I hide the answers?  

Answer Drag cursor over here >Like this<

Did the answer appear when you dragged cursor over it?  Was it invisible before that?

Trivia -- Name that dog

Trivia -- Name that dog

Person or Character                                                     Dog

Mickey Mouse                                                                   ?

Dagwood Bumstead                                                         ?

Dennis the Menace                                                           ?

Timmy                                                                               ?

Buster Brown                                                                   ?

Orphan Annie                                                                   ?

Wendy Darling (Peter Pan)                                             ?

Nick and Nora Charles                                                   ?

Uncle Elby                                                                      ?

Martin Crane (Frazier)                                                 ?

Lyndon Johnson                                                            ?

Richard Nixon                                                                ?

Franklin Roosevelt                                                         ?

Dorothy Gale (Wizard of Oz)                                       ?

Skip, Robbie, Chip (My 3 Sons)                                    ?

Roy Rogers                                                                    ?

Our Gang                                                                       ?

Cindi, Paul Chapman                                                       ?

Corporal Lee Duncan                                                    ?

Cosmo Topper                                                               ?

Extra credit: Name the Homeward Bound trio

Answers:

Person or Character                                                     Dog

Mickey Mouse                                                             Pluto

Dagwood Bumstead                                                    Daisy

Dennis the Menace                                                      Ruff

Timmy                                                                        Lassie

Buster Brown                                                              Tige

Orphan Annie                                                            Sandy

Wendy Darling (Peter Pan)                                         Nana

Nick and Nora Charles                                                 Asta

Uncle Elby                                                              Napoleon

Martin Crane (Frazier)                                               Eddie

Lyndon Johnson                                                 Him and Her

Richard Nixon                                                         Checkers

Franklin Roosevelt                                                           Fala

Dorothy Gale (Wizard of Oz)                                         Toto

Skip, Robbie, Chip (My 3 Sons)                                    Tramp

Roy Rogers                                                                    Bullet

Our Gang                                                             Pete the Pup

Cindi, Paul Chapman                                                        Benji

Corporal Lee Duncan                                               RinTinTin

Cosmo Topper                                                                Neil

Homeward Bound Shadow, Sassy, Chance

TOMORROW -- NAME THAT HORSE

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Recuperate with Me -- Postscript

     Just when I considered myself on the mend enough to eat normally, I got a shock.  At supper I took a bite of sweet gherkin pickle and WHAM, my windpipe shut solid.  I couldn't breathe.  I was terrified and choking.  The pickle didn't seem IN my windpipe, but still I couldn't breathe. 

   My tablemate, Anita,  saw my distress and whacked me on the back, and that made me gasp and gave me a tiny bit of air. And then in tiny desperate gasps I got going again.  I had tears in my eyes and I had wet my pants. 

   A caregiver wheeled me to my room, and helped me find my inhaler.  I used the inhaler and washed the pickle remnants from my mouth.  I used the bathroom. 

   Then I went back to supper, slowly, and had some broth for supper, but no pickle.  I had a normal evening with cards, tv, and computer, but was afraid to go to bed.  Finally I retired and lay gingerly on the bed.

   I slept the night straight through and got myself up in the morning and dressed.  So far it seems like a normal day.  Let's hope that this is the final installment of Recuperate with Me.     

 

Tuesday, March 1, 2005

Scalzi's Photo Assignment

   John Scalzi in his blog By the Way challenges us to a photo task.  Take a picture out our window and describe what we see.

   Most of the responses so far show snow covered landscapes, but this is California.  No snow.  A sunny parking lot and a Starbucks.  Isn't that what California is?  Parking lots and Starbucks.

My snowless back yard in California with Starbuck Coffee Shop

   The North wind has tipped the tree to the south-east where is stands next to palm trees and green lawn.  The driveway between the lawn and the wall serves as an illegal short cut between a residential area and the throughofare. Beyond the wall is a parking lot, Starbucks, Quizno's Sandwich shop, a wireless Phone Company, and hidden by the palms, Mattressland. 

   It is nice to be within walking distance of a dozen fast food places, a bank, a medical center, a super-market, and a shopping mall.

Recuperate with Me -- VIII and Final

Start of Sixth day recuperation at home and twelfth day since onset of major symptoms of pneumonia.

I slept the night through and woke at 7:30. Got myself out of bed, to bathroom and back, got myself dressed. Ate my favorite breakfast, biscuits and gravy, with two sausages included.

That which remains is to ease myself back into my regular lifestyle.

Thanks for having recuperated with me. Your comments and support is wonderful.

Love,

Chuck